U.S. House Admits Nazi Role in Ukraine

Exclusive: The U.S. House of Representatives has admitted an ugly truth that the U.S. mainstream media has tried to hide from the American people that the post-coup regime in Ukraine has relied heavily on Nazi storm troopers to carry out its bloody war against ethnic Russians, reports Robert Parry.

By Robert Parry

Last February, when ethnic Russian rebels were closing in on the Ukrainian port of Mariupol, the New York Times rhapsodically described the heroes defending the city and indeed Western civilization the courageous Azov battalion facing down barbarians at the gate. What the Times didn’t tell its readers was that these “heroes” were Nazis, some of them even wearing Swastikas and SS symbols.

The long Times article by Rick Lyman fit with the sorry performance of America’s “paper of record” as it has descended into outright propaganda hiding the dark side of the post-coup regime in Kiev. But what makes Lyman’s sadly typical story noteworthy today is that the Republican-controlled U.S. House of Representatives has just voted unanimously to bar U.S. assistance going to the Azov battalion because of its Nazi ties.

The neo-Nazi Wolfsangel symbol on a banner in Ukraine.

When even the hawkish House of Representatives can’t stomach these Nazi storm troopers who have served as Kiev’s tip of the spear against the ethnic Russian population of eastern Ukraine, what does that say about the honesty and integrity of the New York Times when it finds these same Nazis so admirable?

And it wasn’t like the Times didn’t have space to mention the Nazi taint. The article provided much color and detail quoting an Azov leader prominently but just couldn’t find room to mention the inconvenient truth about how these Nazis had played a key role in the ongoing civil war on the U.S. side. The Times simply referred to Azov as a “volunteer unit.”

Yet, on June 10, the U.S. House of Representatives approved a bipartisan amendment to the Defense Appropriations Act from Reps. John Conyers Jr., D-Michigan, and Ted Yoho, R-Florida that would block U.S. training of the Azov battalion and would prevent transfer of shoulder-fired anti-aircraft missiles to fighters in Iraq and Ukraine.

“I am grateful that the House of Representatives unanimously passed my amendments last night to ensure that our military does not train members of the repulsive neo-Nazi Azov Battalion, along with my measures to keep the dangerous and easily trafficked MANPADs out of these unstable regions,” said Conyers on Thursday.

He described Ukraine’s Azov Battalion as a 1,000-man volunteer militia of the Ukrainian National Guard that Foreign Policy Magazine has characterized as “openly neo-Nazi” and “fascist.” And Azov is not some obscure force. Ukraine’s Interior Minister Arsen Avakov, who oversees Ukraine’s armed militias, announced that Azov troops would be among the first units to be trained by the 300 U.S. military advisers who have been dispatched to Ukraine in a training mission codenamed “Fearless Guardian.”

White Supremacy

On Friday, a Bloomberg News article by Leonid Bershidsky noted that “it’s easy to see why” Conyers “would have a problem with the military unit commanded by Ukrainian legislator Andriy Biletsky: Conyers is a founding member of the Congressional Black Caucus, Biletsky is a white supremacist.

“Biletsky had run Patriot of Ukraine [the precursor of the Azov battalion] since 2005. In a 2010 interview he described the organization as nationalist ‘storm troops’ … The group’s ideology was ‘social nationalism’ — a term Biletsky, a historian, knew would deceive no one.

“In 2007, Biletsky railed against a government decision to introduce fines for racist remarks: ‘So why the “Negro-love” on a legislative level? They want to break everyone who has risen to defend themselves, their family, their right to be masters of their own land! They want to destroy the Nation’s biological resistance to everything alien and do to us what happened to Old Europe, where the immigrant hordes are a nightmare for the French, Germans and Belgians, where cities are “blackening” fast and crime and the drug trade are invading even the remotest corners.’”

The Bloomberg article continued, “Biletsky landed in prison in 2011, after his organization took part in a series of shootouts and fights. Following Ukraine’s so-called revolution of dignity last year, he was freed as a political prisoner; right-wing organizations, with their paramilitary training, played an important part in the violent phase of the uprising against former President Viktor Yanukovych. The new authorities — which included the ultra-nationalist party Svoboda — wanted to show their gratitude.

“The war in the east gave Biletsky’s storm troopers a chance at a higher status than they could ever have hoped to achieve. They fought fiercely, and last fall, the 400-strong Azov Battalion became part of the National Guard, receiving permission to expand to 2,000 fighters and gaining access to heavy weaponry. So what if some of its members had Nazi symbols tattooed on their bodies and the unit’s banner bore the Wolfsangel, used widely by the Nazis during World War II?

“In an interview with Ukraine’s Focus magazine last September, Avakov, responsible for the National Guard, was protective of his heroes. He said of the Wolfsangel: ‘In many European cities it is part of the city emblem. Yes, most of the guys who assembled in Azov have a particular worldview. But who told you you could judge them? Don’t forget what the Azov Battalion did for the country. Remember the liberation of Mariupol, the fighting at Ilovaysk, the latest attacks near the Sea of Azov. May God allow anyone who criticizes them to do 10 percent of what they’ve done. And anyone who’s going to tell me that these guys preach Nazi views, wear the swastika and so on, are bare-faced liars and fools.’”

Though the House vote on June 10 may have shined a spotlight into this dark corner of the U.S.-embraced Kiev regime, the reality has been well-known for many months though played down in most of the Western news media, often dismissed as “Russian propaganda.”

Even the Times has included at least one brief reference to this reality, though buried deep inside an article. On Aug. 10, 2014, a Times’ article mentioned the Nazi taint of the Azov battalion in the last three paragraphs of a lengthy story on another topic.

“The fighting for Donetsk has taken on a lethal pattern: The regular army bombards separatist positions from afar, followed by chaotic, violent assaults by some of the half-dozen or so paramilitary groups surrounding Donetsk who are willing to plunge into urban combat,” the Times reported.

“Officials in Kiev say the militias and the army coordinate their actions, but the militias, which count about 7,000 fighters, are angry and, at times, uncontrollable. One known as Azov, which took over the village of Marinka, flies a neo-Nazi symbol resembling a Swastika as its flag.” [See Consortiumnews.com’s “NYT Discovers Ukraine’s Neo-Nazis at War.”]

A Shiver Down the Spine

The conservative London Telegraph offered more details about the Azov battalion in an article by correspondent Tom Parfitt, who wrote: “Kiev’s use of volunteer paramilitaries to stamp out the Russian-backed Donetsk and Luhansk ‘people’s republics’ should send a shiver down Europe’s spine.

“Recently formed battalions such as Donbas, Dnipro and Azov, with several thousand men under their command, are officially under the control of the interior ministry but their financing is murky, their training inadequate and their ideology often alarming. The Azov men use the neo-Nazi Wolfsangel (Wolf’s Hook) symbol on their banner and members of the battalion are openly white supremacists, or anti-Semites.”

Based on interviews with militia members, the Telegraph reported that some of the fighters doubted the reality of the Holocaust, expressed admiration for Adolf Hitler and acknowledged that they are indeed Nazis.

Biletsky, the Azov commander, “is also head of an extremist Ukrainian group called the Social National Assembly,” according to the Telegraph article which quoted a commentary by Biletsky as declaring: “The historic mission of our nation in this critical moment is to lead the White Races of the world in a final crusade for their survival. A crusade against the Semite-led Untermenschen.”

In other words, for the first time since World War II, a government had dispatched Nazi storm troopers to attack a European population and officials in Kiev knew what they were doing. The Telegraph questioned Ukrainian authorities in Kiev who acknowledged that they were aware of the extremist ideologies of some militias but insisted that the higher priority was having troops who were strongly motivated to fight. [See Consortiumnews.com’s “Ignoring Ukraine’s Neo-Nazi Storm Troopers.”]

But a rebel counteroffensive led by ethnic Russians last August reversed many of Kiev’s gains and drove the Azov and other government forces back to the port city of Mariupol, where Foreign Policy’s reporter Alec Luhn also encountered the Nazis. He wrote:

“Blue and yellow Ukrainian flags fly over Mariupol’s burned-out city administration building and at military checkpoints around the city, but at a sport school near a huge metallurgical plant, another symbol is just as prominent: the wolfsangel(‘wolf trap’) symbol that was widely used in the Third Reich and has been adopted by neo-Nazi groups.

“Pro-Russian forces have said they are fighting against Ukrainian nationalists and ‘fascists’ in the conflict, and in the case of Azov and other battalions, these claims are essentially true.”

SS Helmets

More evidence continued to emerge about the presence of Nazis in the ranks of Ukrainian government fighters. Germans were shocked to see video of Azov militia soldiers decorating their gear with the Swastika and the “SS rune.” NBC News reported: “Germans were confronted with images of their country’s dark past when German public broadcaster ZDF showed video of Ukrainian soldiers with Nazi symbols on their helmets in its evening newscast.

Nazi symbols on helmets worn by members of Ukraine’s Azov battalion. (As filmed by a Norwegian film crew and shown on German TV)

“The video was shot in Ukraine by a camera team from Norwegian broadcaster TV2. ‘We were filming a report about Ukraine’s AZOV battalion in the eastern city of Urzuf, when we came across these soldiers,’ Oysten Bogen, a correspondent for the private television station, told NBC News. “Minutes before the images were taped, Bogen said he had asked a spokesperson whether the battalion had fascist tendencies. ‘The reply was: absolutely not, we are just Ukrainian nationalists,’ Bogen said.”

Despite the newsworthiness of a U.S.-backed government dispatching Nazi storm troopers to attack Ukrainian cities, the major U.S. news outlets have gone to extraordinary lengths to excuse this behavior, with the Washington Post publishing a rationalization that Azov’s use of the Swastika was merely “romantic.”

This curious description of the symbol most associated with the depravity of the Holocaust and the devastation of World War II can be found in the last three paragraphs of a Post lead story published in September 2014. Post correspondent Anthony Faiola portrayed the Azov fighters as “battle-scarred patriots” nobly resisting “Russian aggression” and willing to resort to “guerrilla war” if necessary.

The article found nothing objectionable about Azov’s plans for “sabotage, targeted assassinations and other insurgent tactics” against Russians, although such actions in other contexts are regarded as terrorism. The extremists even extended their threats to the government of Ukrainian President Petro Poroshenko if he agrees to a peace deal with the ethnic Russian east that is not to the militia’s liking.

“If Kiev reaches a deal with rebels that they don’t support, paramilitary fighters say they could potentially strike pro-Russian targets on their own, or even turn on the government itself,” the article stated.

The Post article like almost all of its coverage of Ukraine was laudatory about the Kiev forces fighting ethnic Russians in the east, but the newspaper did have to do some quick thinking to explain a photograph of a Swastika gracing an Azov brigade barracks. So, in the last three paragraphs of the story, Faiola reported: “One platoon leader, who called himself Kirt, conceded that the group’s far right views had attracted about two dozen foreign fighters from around Europe.

“In one room, a recruit had emblazoned a swastika above his bed. But Kirt dismissed questions of ideology, saying that the volunteers, many of them still teenagers, embrace symbols and espouse extremist notions as part of some kind of ‘romantic’ idea.”

Despite these well-documented facts, the New York Times excised this reality from its article about the Azov battalion’s defense of Mariupol last February. But isn’t the role of Nazis newsworthy? In other contexts, the Times is quick to note and condemn any sign of a Nazi resurgence in Europe. However, in Ukraine, where neo-Nazis, such as Andriy Parubiy served as the coup regime’s first national security chief and Nazi militias are at the center of regime’s military operations, the Times goes silent on the subject.

Rather than fully inform its readers about a crisis that has the potential of becoming a nuclear showdown between the United States and Russia, the Times has chosen to simply be a fount of State Department propaganda, often terming any reference to Kiev’s Nazi storm troopers to be “Russian propaganda.” Now, however, a unanimous U.S. House of Representatives — of all things — has acknowledged the unpleasant truth.

Investigative reporter Robert Parry broke many of the Iran-Contra stories for The Associated Press and Newsweek in the 1980s. You can buy his latest book, America’s Stolen Narrative, either in print here or as an e-book (from Amazon and barnesandnoble.com). You also can order Robert Parry’s trilogy on the Bush Family and its connections to various right-wing operatives for only $34. The trilogy includes America’s Stolen Narrative. For details on this offer, click here.

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57 comments for “U.S. House Admits Nazi Role in Ukraine”

Bill Rood

June 16, 2015 at 19:33

The US Government has been lying since time immemorial. In my own cognizant years, we’ve had the U2 shoot-down initially denied, the Bay of Pigs, the Warren Report, Tonkin Gulf, Watergate, the bombing and invasion of Cambodia, Operation Gladio, many democracies alleged to have been communist and overthrown by the CIA, Iran-Contra, CIA drug running from Vietnam and the Golden Triangle right through the destruction of Gary Webb, April Glaspie’s green light to Saddam Hussein, Kuwaiti incubator babies, non-existent genocide in Kosovo, lies to make war on Iraq, lies to bomb Libya, lies about rebel access to sarin in Libya. They just keep on flowing. The only time I believe a US Government claim is if it’s confirmed by some BRIC country.

My parents taught me that newspapers and tv were suspect because they were controlled by capitalists. My life experience told me they understated the problem. The media has been complicit with nearly all of these lies. About the only respite was when young people forced some truth during the Vietnam War.

A woman once asked me where I got my news. I told her from alternative web sites. She asked how I knew they told the truth. At the time, I didn’t think to ask her how she knew the MSM told her the truth.

john stanton

June 16, 2015 at 10:00

Better late than not at all I suppose. In this link from May 2014 are links to the Nazi sympathizers in Ukraine. The USA is conducting FIDO operations too which I also wrote about in April 2014 (Wes Clark visited there early on). We lag, in this country, so far behind events. In the age of The Net, 365 days is an eternity and the delay in action kills people.

USA is a evil enterprize. Game played by USA , does not matter what evil faction does the uprising(Killings), Once opponents have succeed , America comes in and wipes them out. Ukraine’s Nazi faction is purposely funded and used. End game–step in and clear them out.

zhu bajie

June 16, 2015 at 03:27

I’m sorry that the one thing US Republicans and Democrats can agree on is funding Nazis!

Joe L.

June 15, 2015 at 17:17

Seems to me that the narrative that was portrayed by the MSM, US government, and Ukrainian government continues to break down.

1) I remember when Russia annexed Crimea and then the MSM, US government, and Ukrainian government said that “Crimeans voted at gunpoint” (I believe that Victoria Nuland was still saying that Russia was terrorizing Crimeans in March 2015) meanwhile now we have polls from Gallup, GFK, and the Pew Research Center which all prove that Crimeans want to be a part of Russia and don’t want to go back to Ukraine.

2) Also, there were claims that there were no Neo-Nazis in Ukraine and if anyone said otherwise it was “Kremlin propaganda” meanwhile we have seen programs such as BBC Newsnight showing Neo-Nazis on the Maidan and now the rise of the Azov Battalion (plus a few questionable people taking positions within the Ukrainian Government).

3) While I do believe that there are Russians fighting in Eastern Ukraine, I don’t know if they are directly linked to the Russian Government or not (many Americans fought in the Spanish Civil War but were not sent by the US Government). Russian weapons in Ukraine is not evidence of Russian involvement since Ukraine already has all of these weapons (T-64, T-72, BUK Missile Systems etc.). Since the beginning the Ukrainian Government, US Government, and the MSM have used photos from 2008 of bearded men or Moscow Air Shows to prove that Russia is invading Ukraine today. US Senator Inhofe even used some of these 2008 photographs to try to get support by the US Government to send Ukraine weapons. Add in the overuse of “social media” as proof of everything and my Spidey Sense begins to tingle. At the very least this is sketchy.

Frankly, I don’t know what the whole truth on Ukraine is but it seems to me that the US Government, Ukrainian Government, and the MSM are trying to shape the “evidence” around the story that they wish to portray â€“Â wag the dog. Maybe Russia is lying as well but I find our confrontation with Russia quite dangerous when I believe that it was originally engineered by western powers but has now spun out of control.

This is an important article, which I first received a link to from Peter Dale Scott with following comment: “For a second time (as on Fast Track) the House has shown more moral sense than the Administration and the governing media. In my recent books I have been skeptical about looking for change from the U.S. Congress. But there are more and more signs — driven partly by irreversible increases of awareness about climate change — that a new political consensus may be emerging within the system. Let us hope so, and help!”

Why so surprised. If across-the-board support for the illegal invasion of Iraq didn’t prove that the mainstream media is controlled by governments, we must all be blind. & anyone who can’t see that America is simply expanding its military empire right up to Russia’s borders, and how that might be perceived as a threat to Russia, is brain-dead as well as blind.

Ð”Ñ€ÑƒÐ¶Ð±Ð°ÐÐ°Ñ€Ð¾Ð´Ð¾Ð²

June 13, 2015 at 20:57

As a Russian, I would suggest reading or listening to Mr. Cohen, the Sovietologist (or whatever this profession is called now). Being 100% American, he has grasped the mentality of the Eastern European people and usually presents a more or less correct account of what is happening in that part of the world. You can find interviews with him at The Nation webpage in the “World” section. Seriously, this new “Cold War” is getting on people’s nerves. What is the point of it today, anyway? Same market economy everywhere, no ideological differences except cultural specifics.

Mark

June 14, 2015 at 01:39

The point is not the cold war itself; but US politicians (some are too dumb to see beyond their personal gain), along with bankers, media moguls, corporations and special interests (predominately Israel) have all convinced each other, and many naive others, that they can deceive and murder and thieve their way to what some of them believe is their divine right as ordained by God to rule the world for their benefit and theirs alone — they are the common adversary of all informed and fair minded human beings of this world.

They need help and, at a minimum, prison terms for our safety and their crimes committed to date. If they haven’t deceived each other, then the devil himself must be behind their deeds — they are currently the primary threat known to human existence and life on earth.

U.S. Is Poised to Put Heavy Weaponry in East Europe
By ERIC SCHMITT and STEVEN LEE MYERS

In a significant move to deter possible Russian aggression in Europe, the Pentagon is drawing up plans to store battle tanks, infantry fighting vehicles and other heavy weapons for as many as 5,000 American troops in several Baltic and Eastern European countries, officials say.

Chill, 5000 troops won’t change anything (from the Russian side of the border you can expect 20-100,000 troops) except creating new burden for the U.S. taxpayer. This group is too small to attack Russia, and it does not really make the situation much harder for Russians, since they do not want to attack the Baltic countries anyway (what for? From the strategic point of view: there is nothing there, these people do not wish to be Russia, Russia has access to the Baltic sea via Kaliningrad region – the only reason of Russian military paying big attention to them is the NATO base(s). BTW how many Russian bases at the U.S. border are there?). Russian government will of course make a fuss about it, but it is not going to change anything as well. Good night to your timezone

Oleg

June 14, 2015 at 07:04

Agreed!

Ð”Ñ€ÑƒÐ¶Ð±Ð°ÐÐ°Ñ€Ð¾Ð´Ð¾Ð²

June 13, 2015 at 21:05

BTW Maybe they should ask the Europeans first? I haven’t heard of them agreeing yet

F. G. Sanford

June 13, 2015 at 16:07

Well, it’s good news that the House has finally admitted the Nazi role in Ukraine. Now, if we could only get the EU to admit the Nazi role in Bilderbergâ€¦Yes, yes, I know, its founder, Prince Bernhard was rebranded as an allied war hero, but he started out as a member of the Sturmabteilung and the Reiter SS. The avowed globalist agenda he later institutionalized appears to be a recrudescence of that endemic disease. Then, there’s the Duke of Windsor who with his wife the Duchess charmed Uncle Addy at Berchtesgaden. Posted to France during the 1940 invasion, he fled Paris, but rumor had it British Intelligence stopped his motorcade to advise him that he was heading toward the German lines. Duchess Wallis had been passing French and Belgian defense secrets to Uncle Addy’s buddies. They decided to head for Franco’s friendly fascist forces in Spain. Then, there was that mysterious little rendezvous which is still “top secret” between Rudolf Hess and the Duke of Hamilton. With Nazi party activities now illegal in places like Austria, Germany, Norway and Sweden, those new NATO allies hungry for Jeffersonian democracy play host to party rallies previously condemned by the EU and OSCE. Latvia, Lithuania and Estonia – places Putin must be glad to get rid of – are now touted as “allies” who are clamoring for “reassurance” against the threat of “Russian aggression”. They’re not worried about the Nazis, whom they regard as tourists from Scandinavia. Even the Canadian government, in its commitment to cultural diversity, is contributing state funds to monuments commemorating the 14th Waffen SS Galician Division. Those Ukrainian “freedom fighters” must be remembered! Yep, every fruitcake looney-tunes fascist clique in Europe, from Vichy quislings and Hapsburg monarchists to fascist falangists and bona fide Nazis from the Galician SS are basking in a renaissance of ideological respectability. And, our bozo NATO spokespersons are demanding that we provide “reassurance”. With 10-20% ethnic Russians in those Baltic countries, we can probably “reassure” a potential bloodbath some time soon. I just can’t help wondering what the ethnically Jewish faction of the Neocon persuasion was hoping to accomplish here. It’s definitely fertile ground for some of the more bizarre collaboration conspiracy theories, no doubt about it!

Abe

June 13, 2015 at 20:03

No doubt the ethnically Jewish faction of the Neocon persuasion remembers how in 1941, extensive help from local officials, the Selbstschutz, and the Hilfspolizei (Auxiliary Police) enabled Einsatzgruppe A to systematically exterminate Jewish Lithuanians, Latvians, and Estonians.

Both the Neocons and their liberal interventionist doppelgÃ¤ngers have embraced a truly globalist version of the Brzezinski stratagem: make the whole of Eurasia bleed for as much and as long as is possible.

Abe

June 14, 2015 at 14:42

Prince Bernhard of Lippe-Biesterfeld, later Prince Bernhard of the Netherlands and co-founder of the international Bilderberg Group, denied that he had belonged to the SS and other Nazi organisations during the 1930s, but these are well-documented memberships.

Prince Bernhard was enrolled in the Sturmabteilung (SA – Nazi Stormtroopers), the National Socialist Motor Corps (NSKK), and the Reiter-SS (SS Cavalry Corps) in Berlin, before going to work for the German chemical giant IG Farben, then the world’s fourth-largest company.

The historian Henning Pieper has researched the Waffen-SS and Germany’s difficult process of coming to terms with the Nazi past. In Fegelein’s Horsemen and Genocidal Warfare. The SS Cavalry Brigade in the Soviet Union, Chapter 1 “Elite Sportsmen: The Pre-war SS-Reiterstandarten”, Pieper notes:

“Heinrich Himmler, the leader of the SS, intended to integrate the rural elites, including many members of the German nobility, into his organisation. For this purpose, he solicited the more exclusive rural equestrian associations and incorporated several horse-breeding farms into the structure of the Reiter-SS as well. Although the SA had followed this approach already and taken over a majority of the riding clubs and associations in Germany, the SS was more successful in the main horse breeding areas such as East Prussia, Holstein, Oldenburg, Hanover and Westphalia. Despite the fact that it exerted a growing influence over all aspects of horse riding and breeding in Germany, the SS had to make concessions to influential noblemen. In order to win them over, Himmler accepted members of the equestrian associations into the SS regardless of their political views, a step which sparked protest from the â€˜old fightersâ€™ within the organisation. For new candidates of the ReiterstuÌˆrme, he also suspended the freeze on entry into the Nazi party, which had been introduced in May, 1933. As a result, the horsemen within the SS were elite from the beginning […]

“After the war, the special support role of the 1st SS-Reitersturm, the eloquent behaviour of its men, the valuable connections they made with foreign diplomats, and perhaps also the membership of famous sportsmen and the Dutch prince consort influenced the assessment of the mounted SS at the Nuremberg Trials: unaware of the later crimes of the SS cavalry, the Allied tribunal excluded this part of the SS from being declared a criminal organisation.

“But the 1st SS-Reitersturm was not only a spare-time activity for diplomats â€“ it was also the starting point for several men with very different political ambitions. The roster of 1933 â€“ 1934 almost reads like a â€˜whoâ€™s whoâ€™ of the later SS leadership.”

Abe

June 14, 2015 at 15:02

The Bilderburg signature of military-industrial-political nepotism was deeply inscribed by Prince Bernhard, who became infamous for his involvement in the Lockheed bribery scandals.

A series of bribes and contributions made by officials of U.S. aerospace company Lockheed from the late 1950s to the 1970s in the process of negotiating the sale of aircraft.

The U.S. Government had bailed out Lockheed in 1971, guaranteeing repayment of $195 million in bank loans to the company. The Government Emergency Loan Guarantee Board, set up to oversee the program, investigated whether Lockheed violated its obligations by failing to tell the board about foreign payments.

In late 1975 and early 1976, a sub-committee of the U.S. Senate led by Senator Frank Church concluded that members of the Lockheed board had paid members of friendly governments to guarantee contracts for military aircraft.

In 1976, it was publicly revealed that Lockheed had paid $22 million in bribes to foreign officials in the process of negotiating the sale of aircraft including the F-104 Starfighter, the so-called “Deal of the Century”.

The scandal caused considerable political controversy in West Germany, Italy, the Netherlands and Japan. In the U.S. the scandal nearly led to the corporation’s downfall.

Prince Bernhard received a $1.1 million bribe from Lockheed to ensure the Lockheed F-104 would win out over the Mirage 5 for the purchase contract. He had served on more than 300 corporate boards or committees worldwide and had been praised in the Netherlands for his efforts to promote the economic well-being of the country.

The results of the inquiry led to a constitutional crisis in which Queen Juliana threatened to abdicate if Bernhard was prosecuted. Bernhard was spared, but had to step down from several public positions and was forbidden to wear his military uniforms again.

Prince Bernhard always denied the charges, but after his death on December 1, 2004, interviews were published showing that he admitted taking the money. He said: “I have accepted that the word Lockheed will be carved on my tombstone.”

F. G. Sanford

June 14, 2015 at 17:15

For those who recall that movie scene in, “The Right Stuff”, the plane Chuck Yeager (barely) bailed out of was an F-104. The first prototype flew around 1952, and every edification of the aircraft, regardless of updates, modifications and improvements – was a disaster. The Regular Air Force phased it out in 1969, though a few reserve units maintained it in service until around 1975. Lockheed deserved to, and probably and should have gone bankrupt as a result of this turkey. When the crooked deal was cooked up to sell it to Germany long after its deficiencies were known, Erich Hartmann objected. Hartmann remains the highest scoring “Ace” in aviation history with 352 confirmed kills. (Gregory “Pappy” Boyington only had 26, and two of those were on the ground.) The F-104, or “Widowmaker” as it was affectionately(sic) known in the German Air Force, was responsible for the deaths of 110 German pilots. Hartmann was forced into retirement over his continued objections. True to form, the U.S. military industrial complex appears to be orchestrating the re-make of a bad movie with the F-35 Frightening(sic).

Abe

June 14, 2015 at 18:33

Yes, the devil’s hands are still quite busy.

In 2013, the Lockheed Martin topped the list of US federal government contractors, and remains one of the world’s largest defense contractors.

Lockheed built the satellites used by DigitalGlobe and Google, two other DoD and CIA corporate “partners,” to produce the images used by deception operatives Eliot Higgins and Bellingcat to gin up war in Syria and Ukraine.

As noted by journalist Adam Hudson in “How Google and the Big Tech Companies Are Helping Maintain America’s Empire” —

Google worked with Lockheed to design geospatial technologies. In 2007, describing the company as “Google’s partner,” the Washington Post reported that Lockheed “demonstrated a Google Earth product that it helped design for the National Geospatial-Intelligence Agency’s work in Iraq. These included displays of key regions of the country and outlined Sunni and Shiite neighborhoods in Baghdad, as well as U.S. and Iraqi military bases in the city. Neither Lockheed nor Google would say how the geospatial agency uses the data.”http://www.alternet.org/news-amp-politics/how-google-and-big-tech-companies-are-helping-maintain-americas-empire

All comments critical of Bellingcat “investigation” reports are immediately attacked by the site’s resident pro-Higgins stormtroopers.

When the stormtrooper attackers’ illogic becomes too obvious, then commenters are banned by the Bellingcat site administration.

In Bellingcat’s case, the marketing phrase “by and for citizen investigative journalists” only applies to findings that support U.S. defense and intelligence.

Abe

June 14, 2015 at 21:26

After the end of the Soviet Union and the Warsaw Pact, NATO became the military arm of a hoped-for future no-longer bipolar world â€” instead a monolithically uni-polar global empire, which set out to conquer the former communist nations (first by corrupting their transitions into capitalism, but then increasingly by military means including NATO itself.) The ideological gloss was now gone, but the purpose of global domination by the international aristocracy didnâ€™t go away. NATO became, far more clearly, simply the military arm of the global aristocracy, whose brain is located in Washington as to politics, and in Wall Street as to finance. Americaâ€™s aristocracy would thus rule Europeâ€™s and Japanâ€™s.
[…]
after the Cold War against â€˜communismâ€™ had already ended by the collapse of the communist economies, the Bilderbergers and their agents continued the war as being merely a war of conquest and exploitation of the formerly communist nations and especially of resource-rich Russia â€” an anti-Russia war that has recently been intensified by â€˜Democraticâ€™ President Barack Obama.

The U.S. aristocracy, and, to a lesser extent, the European and Japanese aristocracies, within the Trilateral Commission which had been set up by the Bilderbergers (especially under Bilderberger David Rockefeller), all continue their international-corporate aim for unitary corporate global power, and for the crushing of democracy within all of the member-nations.

EuropÃ¤ische Freiwillige is a German term meaning “European Volunteers”, derived from the German “Freiwillige” (volunteer). The term used to describe volunteers from an occupied country who joined the army of the German occupier.

The Ukrainian volunteer SS “Galician” unit changed its name three times during World War II as it was fully adopted by the SS:

According to a December 2014 BBC report, the Azov Battalion, formed by the Arsen Avakov’s Interior Ministry, is run by “the extremist Patriot of Ukraine organisation, which considers Jews and other minorities “sub-human” and calls for a white, Christian crusade, [the battalion] sports three Nazi symbols om its insignia: a modified Wolf’s Hook, a black sun (or “Hakensonne”) and the title Black Corps, which was used by the Waffen SS.”

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June 13, 2015 at 21:08

Surprisingly, some Ukrainians are proud of that. The East of their country is usually proud of fighting these guys. This creates a big gap between them…

Abe

June 13, 2015 at 12:37

Whereas the central focus of Obamaâ€™s foreign policy is to weaken if not destroy Russia, some in Washington are not satisfied with the intensity of that campaign, and want it to be even more, but Obama is trying to avoid pushing European leaders so hard on this that he loses them altogether. The difference between Obama and the Republicans on this is merely tactical. Both want to destroy Russia; the debate is over how to get the job done.

We tried to get people to care about themselves, their country, their families for 43 years.
We finally created Justice Caps – http://www.justicecaps.com – so that every person can be an “Army of One.”
Our technology blinds NSA video surveillance and turns their multi-billion dollars software into junk.
All for $ 15.00

Mertze Dahlin

June 13, 2015 at 04:10

I’m glad I belong to the Veterans for Peace organization. I have earlier learned of the Nazi element in the Ukraine. This lends credence to the several mailings I receive from NY Times asking me to subscribe for a ridiculously low cost; they are apparently losing subscribers who find out the truth from other directions.

Further to my earlier comment on the Guardian, I came across a lovely “at home with the Kaysers” type piece this morning. This charming little video entitled The Kaysers of Bikendrik Island – features former German rocket scientist Lutz Kayser and his wife Susanne Kayser-Schillegger at home on a private island in the Marshall Islands, presumably bought with the profits they made from trading with world dictators.

Mrs Kayser-Schillegger was proud to show off her valuable paintings, one by the famous painter Adolf Hitler, along with other nazi memorabilia. If this is supposed to be a joke, it is in very bad taste indeed. If it is for real, God help The Guardian, nobody else can.

Hitler was a pretty good painter by the way,the serial liars(of whom the Nazis in Ukraine see clearly,to their credit,and I aint a Nazi)always call him failed and a housepainter,when not one modern Zionist or Jewish artist comes close to having any talent,other than putting one over on the gullible public.Screw the holocaust and its tale of racist woe,today’s actual holocausts backed by the serial liars leaves it irrelevant,other than the impetus for Zionist revenge on the world.

The UK’s Guardian also featured a glowing article on “The women fighting on the frontline in Ukraine” earlier in March this year. Though the newspaper has never acknowledged it, the original article was changed after Stacie Herbert of RT’s Kaiser Report pointed out the van in photo of ‘Anaconda’ clearly displays Nazi symbolism, which journalist, Elena Savchuk, had either failed to see, or neglected to mention.

Even the so-called ‘liberal’ corporate media can no longer be trusted when it comes to reporting Russia, war, financial issues, banks, politics, the 1% … well, just about anything, come to think of it.

Even the French fashion magazine “Elle” has been glamorising Nazis, although it was portraying them as freedom fighters. It was forced to apologise when one of the female volunteers they pictured was found to be openly spreading Nazi propaganda on the internet, complete with Swastikas and Nazi salutes.http://newcoldwar.org/fashionable-fascism-civil-war-ukraine/

The Nazi symbolism of the Aidar, Azov and Donbass battalions (armed by Ukraine’s Interior Ministry and the Ministry of Defense) deliberately invokes the worst atrocities of the Second World War in the East.

Historian Per Anders Rudling at Lund University (Sweden) has noted:

“The Waffen-SS Galizien worked alongside one of the most brutal counter-insurgency units of Nazi Germany, the dreaded SS-Sonderbattalion Dirlewanger, a unit which included rapists, murderers, and the criminally insane, which carried out brutal anti-partisan activities in Belarus and Poland, and the no less brutal suppression of the Warsaw uprising in 1944. Waffen- SS Galizien and Dirlewanger transferred officers between their units: Magall had served in the SS-Sonderbattalion Dirlewanger before he was appointed the chief supply officer of Waffen-SS Galizien on 2 March, 1944.”

The Guardian photo features the charming Anaconda alongside an Aidar Battalion van.

An equally charming symbol is displayed on the door of the van: the crossed WWII German “potato masher” hand grenade symbol of SS-Sturmbrigade Dirlewanger.

Also known as the 36th Waffen Grenadier Division of the SS, the Dirlewanger Brigade was a Waffen-SS unit composed of criminals, and was led by Oskar Dirlewanger.

Originally formed for anti-partisan duties against the Polish resistance; the Dirlewanger Brigade eventually saw action in Slovakia, Hungary, and against the Soviet Red Army near the end of the war.

During its operations, the Dirlewanger Brigade engaged in the rape, pillaging and mass murder of civilians.

In Russia and Belarus, the Dirlewanger Brigade carved out a reputation as an atrocious unit. Numerous German Army and even SS commanders attempted to remove Dirlewanger from the SS and disband the unit, although he had patrons within the Nazi apparatus who intervened on his behalf.

The Dirlewanger Brigade was most notably credited with the destruction of Warsaw, and the massacre of ~100,000 of the city’s population during the Warsaw Uprising; and participating in the brutal suppression of the Slovak National Uprising in 1944.

SS-Sturmbrigade Dirlewanger earned the notoriety as the most criminal and heinous SS unit in Hitler’s war machine.

But the UK Guardian wants you to know that what’s really important about the fighting in Ukraine:

“The baby-faced 19-year-old says that her mother is very worried about her and phones several times a day”

I gave up on the Guardian many years ago, their coverage of Ukraine is pure propaganda, as bad as Fox ‘news’. Like Julian Assange once said: “the Guardian is the UK government’s favorite attack dog on Russian relations”. It’s gotten so bad that some guy even started writing a blog devoted to exposing the bias and propaganda coming from the Guardian regarding Ukraine-https://guardianwarpropaganda.wordpress.com/category/ukraine/

Joe Tedesky

June 12, 2015 at 23:54

Robert Parry is like a old time carpenter who knows how to hammer in a bend nail. Mr. Parry has earned the right to feel good about his self when it comes to exposing the NYT (& the rest of the MSM) for all the lies they tell.

My hat is off the Representatives Conyers and Yoho. Although, what is to prevent these Ukrainian Nazi soldiers from merely changing their uniforms? A zebra can’t change it’s strips, but a soldier could be outfitted to look different.

Maybe, the US House decided to do something before the news got out. By that I mean; last week a lady called into a talk show about what was happening to Ukrainian Jews. This woman explained how she had heard about the Ukraine Jewish plight from Christian Radio. So, apparently this news about Ukrainian Nazi’s is being broadcast on Christian Radio. We all know how the words out over the alternative news internet sites (this site included). So is Washington listening?

If you would like to listen to a great talk show then stream KDKA radio Chris Moore on Sunday’s between 4 to 9 EST. Mr. Moore actually allows people to finish their sentences so call 1-866-391-1020 and talk on his ‘Open Mic’. Chris at times references Robert Parry articles when it applies. His guest are people like Paul Craig Roberts, Webster Tarpley, and many others who you don’t get a chance to hear from via our wonderful MSM. It would be nice if Mr. Parry were to be on the air with Chris Moore. Just thought I would tell you all that since talk shows like Mr. Moore’s are hard to fine.

Abe

June 12, 2015 at 21:38

Stephen F. Cohen [AUDIO] discusses the ongoing struggle over the Minsk Accords for a negotiated settlement, with Secretary of State John Kerryâ€™s progress with Russian President Vladimir Putin undermined by the Obama administration, even in the White House itself; and the US-backed Kiev governmentâ€™s sudden decision to blockade the pro-Russian enclave of Transnistria, creating yet another potential source of enlarged war.

The coverage of the conflict in eastern Ukraine has been bad from the beginning. However, the omission of facts, and the clearly distorted coverage, has taken on a new level of insidiousness and dishonesty in recent days. Even in the scant attention that Kievâ€™s escalation does get in western media, it is not called what it is: aggression by Ukraineâ€™s military.

Avakov orchestrated efforts to crush popular opposition by means of mass killings carried out by the ultra-right. The first crackdown came after a secret April 12-13 visit to Kiev by CIA Director John Brennan.

The Ukrainian Interior Ministry’s Azov Battalion, infamous for alleged war crimes perpetrated during Kiev’s so-called “Anti-Terrorist Operation” (ATO) military offensive against eastern Ukraine, has since expanded into a regiment.

Collaborating with Washington and Western intelligence services waging a “hybrid war” on Russia, Avakov was central to the repeated claims of a â€œRussian invasionâ€ of Ukraine in June 2014.

Every one of these Western allegations has been evaluated and repeatedly shown to be false by professional journalists, independent researchers, and defense analysts.

Unable to succeed in their efforts to demonize Russia, frustrated by international recognition of the legitimate concerns of the people of eastern Ukraine, and discredited by the exposure of neo-Nazi forces in the Ukrainian government and military, the Pentagon and western intelligence sought to achieve a breakthrough.

A well-prepared Propaganda 3.0 social media disinformation campaign launched into high gear with the destruction of Malaysia Airlines MH-17, starting with a video released by Avakov via his Facebook page.

The Pentagon and Western intelligence have intensified their disinformation campaign in 2015.

Using a Propaganda 3.0 swarming strategy, disseminating the very same fabrications via an online army of Internet â€œusersâ€ who â€œshare contentâ€ that is â€œverifiedâ€ by fake “fact checkers” such as Eliot Higgins (pseudonym Brown Moses) and his Bellingcat disinformation site.

Recently Bellingcat has been promoting its “Forensic Analysis of Satellite Images” using digital imagery from DigitalGlobe and technology from Google, companies with extensive ties to the U.S. Department of Defense (DoD) and the Central Intelligence Agency (CIA)

Have no fear. The unpleasant truth recently acknowledged by the US House will be forgotten with the next wave of vitriolic anti-Russia propaganda.

Cassandra

June 13, 2015 at 17:10

Avakov is not just calling names and must have had expert legal advice from his handlers. If the uprising is “terrorism,” combatting it is a “police action,” not subject to all sorts of international law and permitting the IMF to lend money.

Kudos to the House of Representatives and their unanimous vote and to Conyers and Yoho for their amendment. I really feel good about this action despite the fact that most Americans have no idea what the Azov batallion is all about. Perhaps, the tide is beginning to turn in the Ukraine and American newspapers will become more objective in their reporting thereof. The Times, though, is without hope. It is a rag sheet for the top 1% representing their august view.
Kudos to Mr. Parry. You have done the Republic proud.

Alec

June 13, 2015 at 01:15

“It is a rag sheet for the ZIONIST top 1%”

Mark

June 12, 2015 at 20:01

The major media networks in the US and the West need to be exposed as the propaganda machine(s) they are — without their disservice to truth and country and world how would corporations get away selling all the unsafe products (agricultural and pharmaceuticals) we consume? And how would our government mislead the public causing us into invading the Mid-East at our expense for what was and is, for some Zionists and their dual citizen agents, standing plans for the Mid-East and Greater Israel?

Mass media propaganda is largely responsible for keeping the truth hidden and holding civil unrest to a minimum and garnering support as we sacrifice lives and treasure to enrich corporate and special interests while the real backbone of the US — the health and strength of the people is weakened — as we’re used like pawns in a game of geopolitical chess by those the press favors and lies for.

Boycotts and live continuous protesting at major media locations are needed — traffic stopping protests too big to be left out of the news would draw attention to the unrest and discontent as it continues to rise in intensity and gains momentum taking on a life of it’s own — a life that if successfull will free the American people from whats becoming more and more of an illegitimate police state — victimizing many others around the world — with what in all reality is an empire of destruction — carelessly destroying lives for what it perceives is its own selfish benefit.

Cassandra

June 13, 2015 at 17:04

We could use the traditional way to reach the public over the heads of the press: take out a one-page ad in the New York Times.

Gregory Kruse

June 12, 2015 at 19:05

Congratulations to Mr. Parry for his vindication in this matter. He has courageously and repeatedly stood up for the truth, and now deserves at least a pat on the back.

Bill Bodden

June 12, 2015 at 18:12

The collusion of people at the New York Times with Nazis in Ukraine brings to mind a phase in Hitler’s rise to power when Germany’s industrial oligarchs allied with Hitler while they entertained the illusion they could eventually control Hitler and his Nazis. The NYT appears to be indulging a similar delusion. Hopefully, sanity will somehow prevail in Ukraine if not in the editorial offices of the “paper of record” (sic).

rex

June 12, 2015 at 18:06

Oh what a tangled web we weave
When first we practice to deceive. – Sir Walter Scott

This should become the new banner for the’ Zionist newspaper of record’.

Based on Robert Parry’s details above, they won’t like the Nazi connections in the Ukraine but they will still find it hard to change horses mid-stream.

When you take a stance, as they did from day one supporting the Nuland government in Kiev, the 17 billion dollar IMF loan to the same Nazi regime (just to get Monsanto into those lovely lands for their GM experiments) and anything that they can write about the evils of the “Soviet Empire” and you’ve been doing it for years, one must be careful not to lose credibility, overnight.

Over a week or two, that’s OK. The American people can accept that. After all, there will be a basketball game on somewhere to cloud the real facts.

I guess we will all see that Netanyahu tells the US Congress to do about this soon enough.

Watch the tempo change. It is now bordering on comic opera.
But when 90% of the media in a country the size of the USA is controlled by Netanyau’s nasties, posing as US patriots, then you will be able to rely on AIPAC to come up with an acceptable (almost credible) answer for what is happening in Ukraine . After all, they have 477 elected members to support them and for that bunch of fellow travellers, it’s a case of Nazis smartzies, who really cares?

Time to send in the most credible government operator again, Kagan’s woman, with her billions and her doughnuts, this time to change the Nazi badges to something more acceptable, like a dove of peace, a few stars and a couple of stripes. Much more acceptable.
Ukraine is almost the 51st state, after all.

Well done, Obama, You’ve done it again.

Bill Bodden

June 12, 2015 at 18:17

… this time to change the Nazi badges to something more acceptable, …

Perhaps, General Petraeus could chair the badge redesign committee.

paul wichmann

June 13, 2015 at 04:13

“Oh what a tangled web we weave
When first we practice to deceive.”

Too bad Scott did not leave a quotable assessment about when the practice -as in a very experienced doctor’s practice – of deceit gets really old, tired, transparent and downright offensive. And when the fruits of the deceit go from over-ripe to rotten.

W. R. Knight

June 12, 2015 at 17:23

“When even the hawkish House of Representatives canâ€™t stomach these Nazi storm troopers who have served as Kievâ€™s tip of the spear against the ethnic Russian population of eastern Ukraine, what does that say about the honesty and integrity of the New York Times when it finds these same Nazis so admirable?”

W.R. Knight asks, “what does that say about the honesty and integrity of the New York Times when it finds these same Nazis so admirable?â€”

It says that The Times is following its long history of covering up genocide. The blog Jezebel complains that the NYT declined to mention the race of the perpetrators of lynching in the U.S; in 1919, the NAACP had to take out an ad to notify the readers of the Times what was going on.

In the 1930s, The Times famously declined to report the Ukrainian famine, this at a time when it could have resolved the issue of Soviet complicity.

The NYT was late to the party in exposing the genocide of Central America that took place from Arbenz through Battalion 316 and they screwed their own correspondent, Ray Bonner– and it continues to support the takeover of Honduras by authoritarian thugs who include narcotraffickers.

The Times was happy for us to send weapons to Islamic extremists in Syria, and its record on reporting the Israel-Palestine conflict is somewhere between unbelievable and otherworldly.